Table of Contents

Introduction , Therapy thinking and political process—possibilities and limitations , Aggression and leadership , The economic psyche , Against nature , Making a difference—what can an individual do? , Promiscuities: politics, psychology, imagination, and spirituality (and a note on hypocrisy) , Political anatomy of spirituality , The fascinations of fundamentalism , The plural father , First catch your child , Jung and anti-Semitism: definitely not a therapy for politics*

About the Author

Andrew Samuels has, for 40 years, been evolving a unique blend of post-Jungian, relational psychoanalytic and humanistic approaches to therapy work. He is recognized internationally as a leading commentator from a psychotherapeutic perspective on political and social problems. His work on the father, sexuality, spirituality and countertransference has also been widely appreciated. He is a Founder Board Member of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, past chair of the UK Council for Psychotherapy, and co-founder of Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility and also of the Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy. He is Professor of Analytical Psychology at Essex University and holds visiting chairs at New York, London and Roehampton Universities. His many books have been translated into 19 languages.

Reviews

'What could be more important than bringing to politics and the great social issues of our time the profound and clarifying perspective of psychodynamic thinking? Once again Andrew Samuels challenges and inspires us with questions we haven't dared formulate, and thankfully, at the same time, offers a brilliant analysis of the difficulties that overwhelm and obstruct the pursuit of them.'- Jessica Benjamin, psychoanalyst and author of Shadow of the Other'At a time when policy-makers are looking to psychology for simplistic answers to complex problems, and when psychotherapy is being co-opted in the service of capitalism, A New Therapy for Politics? offers an essential, radically different vision of the interplay between the political and the psychoanalytic. Now that politics seems more stuck than ever, Samuels' fresh and provocative analysis might help us understand this condition, and what it would take to change it.' - William Davies, author of The Happiness Industry'Andrew Samuels always challenges us. This book extends his themes of the polity and the therapeutic. Every day, political crises emerge which lend themselves to psychoanalytic analysis and therapeutic interventions. Who will be brave enough to listen?'-Susie Orbach, psychoanalyst and writer